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1954 Chris-Craft Commander Express by mtdoramike - Dumas - RADIO - 36"


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I putttied and sanded three times and finally got an accceptable finish that I like. It's smooth as a babies bottom. But I made note of a few things I will mention:

 

1. I made sure to add the same amount of putty and in the same areas on both sides of the hull in order to keep the balance of the hull. The putty is heavier than the balsa wood.

2. When sanding the hull, DO NOT grab the hull and rough house it, caress it like a fine woman becaue if not, you will crack some planks.

 

  

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I tried the nickel plating, but it didn't work with a hoot. It actually started  pittting the metal parts. It seems that the metal parts aare a pot metal and doesn't take to well to being plated. I was skeptical anyway with type of black magic. Now , it would or at least it started coating a penny before I stopped the test. So after spening $50.00 on the caswell plating kit, I will not throw good money after bad trying any other of their black magic or supernatural things. Next will be aa can of spray paint.:default_wallbash:

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Wow, that's bad news about the plating. Nickel plating is very finicky, as I have heard from Engineers who tied to use it in commercial electronics projects. Environment has to be totally clean, almost sterile, which is very hard to do. Just fingerprints will cause it to fail.

A tried and true method for a very nice chrome-like finish is to airbrush Alclad chrome paint onto a surface that is primered with a coat of black acrylic (like Tamiya) and is then totally dry, cured before the Alclad. It looks almost just like real chrome (or polished aluminum, or a number of other shiny choices). If you use Alclad, follow the primer instructions the bottle gives exactly. Anything else may fail because the paint is very "hot" and will cut right through other types of primer. 

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